Colby Agency: Small-Town Secrets Part 8

She had to.

Her gaze settled on William Spencer as he ended his call. He tucked the cell phone into his pocket and looked her way.

As they stood there, looking at each other from opposite sides of the street, she realized it was time. Everything about the past grew more confusing with each new discovery. She felt helpless and almost hopeless with the lack of understanding as to how it all tied together. Chief Gerard was no help at all.

If she felt that way, Spence had to be completely baffled. It was time she trusted someone with her nightmare scenario. Maybe it was a mistake. But it was a risk she was going to have to take.

He hadn't walked away yet, and that was a lot more than she could say about anyone else in her life the past decade or so. Her "weirdness," as they called it, usually sent people, particularly men, running.

Spence couldn't help her if she didn't cooperate.

She needed this to end...one way or another.

DANA MOVED DOWN THE STEPS of the Bellomy's house, then headed in Spence's direction.

He'd expected to have to go over there and basically drag her back over here. Not that he could blame her. Whatever had happened sixteen years ago, it had been personal and extremely twisted. No matter how the chief wanted to ignore what was right in front of his eyes, there was a major cover-up going on here.

And it started with Dana Hall.

O'Brien had suggested that Spence go for a firm tone, building the momentum until he felt compelled to let up. There was no way to know how far Spence could go until he'd begun. It was definitely time to get started.

"I guess," Dana said as she climbed the steps to her childhood home, "I freaked out a little."

Understandable. "Seeing your room defaced in such a manner would freak out most anyone." She appeared calmer now, maybe even a little determined. Her shoulders were square, her gaze fully engaging his.

"You said you wanted to go to the place..." She glanced away. "Where they found...us."

A major step in the right direction. "I believe that could be useful in helping you remember."

"This way."

Dana led the way behind the house and into the woods. The air was heavy with humidity, but not as bad as yesterday. The path through the woods was a little overgrown but unmistakable. The sun filtered through the trees, lighting their journey.

Spence could easily picture two thirteen-year-olds traipsing through the dark woods, blond hair flowing in the breeze. Had someone followed them that night? The woods stretched along the road on either side of the Hall home. The killer could have parked most anywhere and made his way to this path or directly to the stream from another route.

Spence heard the trickling of water well before the path opened into a clearing on the bank of the wide stream. Boulders were scattered about. Good for seating. It didn't appear anyone had been here recently. There were no signs of a campfire or litter of any sort.

Was this place off-limits as Dana's bedroom had been all these years? The chief couldn't exactly put a padlock on the woods. But something had kept the curious from venturing here.

Then he saw the reason.

Crosses and angels. Cl.u.s.ters of what appeared to have been dried flowers and...was that garlic cloves? The primitive, weatherworn items hung from dozens of branches. He'd been so focused on the stream and the surrounding ground area that he hadn't looked up at first.

Dana turned all the way around, taking in the bizarre decorations.

"Does any of this mean anything specific to you?" he asked, grasping at straws. "Was any of it here...before?"

She shook her head. "There was nothing like this here...before." Her gaze collided with his. "I suppose it has something to do with the pictures drawn on the bedroom walls."

No doubt. "Why don't we sit?" He gestured to a couple of boulders. "Relax a minute, then we can go over what you remember from that night."

Dana couldn't block the trembling she felt inside. She worked hard not to let it show. Courage, strength...she needed both right now.

Deep breath. Another. Then another. Okay. Just get it over with.

"We lay right there." She gestured to the patch of gra.s.s near the stream. "You could see the stars from there." That was about the only spot where the tree branches didn't touch. She s.h.i.+vered when she surveyed the hanging crosses and angels. Who would do this?

"You talked about driver's licenses and-" Spence shrugged "-girl stuff."

Dana nodded. "We always felt safe here. It was our place. Only our closest friends came here with us."

"Like Joanna and Sherry."

"Yes."

"Tell me about Ginger Ellis."

"Same grade as us. She made the cheerleading squad that year." When Donna didn't, she left off. Dana closed her eyes and banished the memory of how upset Donna had been.

"She accused you of being responsible for her missing dog."

Dana tried to summon the memory, but it wouldn't come. "I remember there was talk about it, but my parents kept me home from school for a few days after that. Donna came home upset. She'd gotten into a fight with some of Ginger's friends. Taking up for me, I suppose." Her sister had always taken up for Dana. Maybe because she was two minutes older. Being older, even if only by minutes, Donna had felt like the big sister.

"What about Patty Shepard? Do you recall the incident involving her cat? That was around the same time."

That she remembered all too well. "Patty accused me of trying to start a fight with her over something she'd said."

"What did she say?"

Dana met his eyes then. Her stomach clenched. "She said I was weird. You know, a freak or something."

"You didn't confront her about it?"

Dana shook her head resolutely. "I wasn't the confrontational type. I never got into fights or arguments. I didn't have to. No one seemed interested in bothering me. The rest of the kids pretty much left me alone until...right before the murders."

Spence didn't ask any more questions for a while. He seemed to mull over what she'd told him. Dana twisted her fingers together. If she could just slow the pounding in her chest. She knew how this all sounded. Like she was pretending nothing ever happened. But it was true. Until Patty Shepard and Ginger Ellis started those rumors, Dana had always been invisible. Or it had felt that way. Her sister was the one who made all the friends. She was the popular one. Not Dana.

"Just a few more questions."

Dana searched his face, tried to read some hint of the conclusions he'd reached. Impossible. "All right."

"You and your sister were twins. Identical twins."

"Yes."

"Did anyone ever get the two of you confused?"

Dana started to say no. Donna was the outgoing one. Miss Popular. She had a million friends. Dana was quiet. The bookworm. Though their physical features had been mirror images, their personalities were polar opposites. No one ever mixed them up...except once.

"Donna hated math cla.s.s. She was certain she would fail seventh-grade math, so I took the cla.s.s for her while she covered my English cla.s.s."

"No one ever suspected?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Could Donna have pretended to be you in other situations?"

Dana frowned. "Why would she do that?"

"You were accused of having problems with the Shepard girl and the Ellis girl. Is it possible Donna was the one who had trouble with them while pretending to be you?"

"Patty was a grade higher and Ginger..." Dana wanted to deny the possibility. To say that her sister wouldn't have been involved with either girl, but that wasn't true. Patty was a second-year cheerleader; Ginger had just made the team. Both had been in Dana and Donna's gym cla.s.s. Still, her sister was loved by all. She never had trouble...unless she was taking up for Dana. "I suppose it's possible." That was as far as she was willing to go along those lines. Why would her sister have gone so far? She would never have hurt an animal.

Whispers from the past echoed in Dana's ears as if refuting her conclusion. Dana shook off the creepy sensations.

Dana understood what he was getting at. It was time she told him the truth. She was the one he needed to be looking at as a suspect.

"There's something I haven't told you." Her pulse jumped. She'd taken the first step. There was no turning back now.

"Take your time," he said quietly. "And remember, I'm on your side."

But how long would that last when she told him about her dreams?

"When the nightmares started they were a little vague. Just unnerving."

"That's fairly typical after a life-altering trauma."

"Then the images became clearer and clearer."

Dana moistened her lips and tried to take a breath, couldn't manage it. Don't stop now. Tell him. Just tell him.

"I dream that I'm lying on the blanket with my sister and I fall asleep. Like I told you. Then..." The point of no return. "Then suddenly I'm holding a pillow...over my sister's face and she's trying to get away, but she can't." She swallowed back the threatening emotions. "Because I'm sitting astride her. I have her arms pinned down with my knees...it..."

Those images flashed through her mind then, as if to confirm her words. She shook with the force of it. Dear G.o.d. How could she have killed her own sister? How could...?

Dana couldn't hold back anymore; she broke down. The sobs just kept coming, kept rocking through her.

A strong arm was suddenly around her. Spence consoled her with quiet words, kept that arm tight around her trembling shoulders.

When she could speak again, Dana scrubbed at her face and turned to him. "What if I killed my sister? And the others? How could I have done such a thing?" She dropped her face into her hands. "I don't understand."

"Sometimes dreams distort what really happened. The fact that you survived and your sister didn't has heaped a lot of guilt onto your shoulders. You may be seeing yourself as the killer merely because you survived."

Dana wiped her eyes and nose and tried to calm the hiccupping sobs. When she'd regained her composure again, she admitted, "I've never considered that possibility." Tears burned her eyes again. "I just always a.s.sumed I could be guilty." She closed her eyes and clung to hope. "I was so afraid. But I have to know for certain."

"And you will."

Dana looked up at him. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I'm not going to stop until I know what really happened here. The chief isn't being on the up and up with us. The whole investigation feels like a cover-up was going on. I just don't know who he's protecting."

"Maybe it's me." Her voice quavered.

"Maybe," Spence admitted. "But that's what we're going to find out."

She'd expected him to want nothing else to do with her when he learned the part she'd kept to herself. Why was he taking it so calmly?

"But what if I killed her?"

Spence pushed the hair from her cheek with the tips of his fingers. "I'm a decent judge of people, Dana. I knew you were hiding something, but I don't think you're a killer."

She started to argue, but he stopped her with a touch of his forefinger to her lips.

"Don't keep obsessing on that one aspect or you'll ignore everything else. Explore your memories, let your dreams flow unimpeded. You might see more than you've allowed yourself to see until now. We have to consider the big picture. There are people we need to talk to. Like Lorie Hamilton, Patty Shepard and Ginger Ellis. I'd like to interview Joanna's and Sherry's parents as well."

That was not going to be easy. The possibility of any of those people cooperating was little to none.

But they had to try. He was reasonably sure that Ginger Ellis was the waitress he'd met at the diner. Ginger wasn't a common name and this was a small town.

"Let's go." He stood, gave her a hand getting up. "We're going to that diner and we'll have lunch. Then we'll start with Lorie Hamilton."

If they could find her.

The thought of going to the diner and having people stare at her wasn't exactly palatable. But she had Spence on her side.

She wasn't alone.

The walk back through the woods was filled with a sense of relief rather than the anxiety she'd felt on the way in. Having finally admitted her deepest fear had removed a tremendous weight from her chest.

It was the first time she'd trusted anyone enough to tell them the truth.

They'd just rounded the corner of her childhood home when Spence stalled.

Dana started to ask him what was wrong, but then her gaze lit on the car.

The winds.h.i.+eld was smashed. The two tires within her line of sight were deflated. But it was the words painted along the side of the dark-blue sedan that shook her to the core of her being.

No more victims.

Chapter Eleven.